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Friday, April 14, 2017

A brief U.S. history of the rise and fall of various execution methods

Over the past 100 years, states have sought the most
humane execution methods, each supposedly “guaranteed” to eliminate the
gruesome errors of previous uncivilized methods, reported the Washington Post. At the beginning of the 19th century,
hanging was the universally accepted execution method.

Around the turn of the 20th century, the electric chair was
introduced and quickly spread, thanks to the Gerry Commission (named after its
chairman, Elbridge Gerry, grandson of the early Massachusetts governor who
bequeathed the gerrymander to American politics). The Gerry Commission reviewed
and rejected all known execution methods as barbaric and uncivilized — except
the brand-new electric chair, then guaranteed to kill the inmate “in the
ten-thousandth part of a second.” Thomas
Edison vouched for this, the courts went along, and electrocution was soon
the main method of state killing.

In 1924, Nevada adopted the gas chamber. Few other states
joined in, partly because of the association with Nazi extermination camps, and
partly because it was so difficult to seal the deadly gas within the chamber or
to vent it safely after the prisoner was dead.

In 1982, Texas was the first to use lethal injection when it
executed Charles Brooks Jr. Lethal injection thus became the most recent in a
series of “institutional
fads.” As you can see in the chart above, since the decline of hanging, no
method of execution has remained popular for long.

In 1977, Oklahoma developed the three-drug protocol that
most states quickly adopted. Jay Chapman, the Oklahoma state medical examiner
at the time, designed the procedure to improve on what he had seen occur during
use of the electric chair.

In writing the laws for that procedure, state Sen.
Bill Dawson and Rep. Bill Wiseman had little
or no consultations with doctors or scientists. The protocol was never
subjected to any serious testing or evaluation. They didn’t consider any of the
available evidence assessing the risks of lethal injection. The law left all
critical decisions to the prison officials in charge of the execution, who
often have little medical training or experience. And even the best procedures
can go wrong if carried out by inexperienced, stressed and untrained personnel.

About Matt

An analysis of crime and punishment from the perspective of a former prosecutor and current criminal justice practitioner.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or postions of any county, state or federal agency.